Gathering Audio 2024
Introductory Speech by JJ
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
Website of JJ Dewey, Author of the Immortal Books and Much More
Gathering Audio 2024
Introductory Speech by JJ
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
Truth and Judgment
A reader pointed out that it is often painful to face the truth. It is true one must be prepared for some pain to advance in truth — this causes people to be afraid of it.
There is one important point I would like to make. You do not have to be perfect or have the ability to make absolutely correct judgments and decisions to be able to use this power. You must overcome prejudices and fears about these qualities.
The initiates on both the Light and Dark side use these powers. The average people are pretty much controlled or influenced by the judgments and decisions of the Light and Dark side, but are afraid to make them for themselves. This is why Jesus called followers sheep and taught that they needed a good shepherd, not an evil one.
To follow on the Path of Light and use the powers of decision and judgment one must overcome fears and make sure his heart and intentions are pure. Along the path you will make many judgments and decisions that seem less than perfect, but if your intentions are right you will learn from them and master the Third Key of Knowledge, which is “Communion.”
There is a third aspect or ability that you and your higher self possesses, which removes the barriers to communion with the soul or the God within so your judgments will be wise and your decisions will lead you along the most holy of paths. What is this third quality or ability?
We do not leave judgment and decision behind. Your understanding of them should continue to grow for the rest of your life. I just came to a new realization of decision last week and I expect more to come.
Never fear maintaining what you have achieved. Loose yourself in service and do not think about it and God will continue to magnify you beyond your expectations.
Awareness is a good answer. It shows that you have been thinking and contemplating. It is not the key word, but awareness must be present to use the power of the key word. There is no communion without some type awareness.
Before one can make a good decision he must assume the power of judgment, but before one can make an accurate judgment there must be communion with the Spirit of God. We must be aware that there is a universal Spirit to commune with, but we must also clear away the fogs and see through the darkness to see the inner light. What power must we use to do this?
I will add this on the Middle Way. The Middle Way is some point between the two extremes, but not exactly in the middle. It is often close to the midway point, but may also be an extreme position. In each situation it is merely somewhere between the extremes. The only way to find the Middle Way is to gather all knowledge available and force yourself to make a judgment. Even if your judgment is wrong you are following the Middle Way because if your intent is pure the point of truth in the middle will eventually be revealed, because you used judgment which is the power of God in you. Does this feel right to you?
When I was young the words of Jesus which most impressed me where: “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened.”
I took this to heart, but after a short period I found that there were questions I asked to which I did not receive an answer.
Then I registered the following parable from Luke:
5 “And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves;
6 “For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him?
7 “And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.
8 “I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.
9 “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” Luke: 11:5-10
The idea here is that if you persist in asking then God will give you then answer just to shut you up if need be.
I decided to keep on seeking and eventually I did find. Some of my questions took over 20 years of pondering before I received an answer, but the answers did always come. One thing I have learned is that there is no limit to the knowledge that is available to us, and all of us are capable of a soul contact that is able to register and identify all truth.
Sending & Receiving
I have received numerous responses from readers attempting to correct me by saying that we they do not identify with the student-teacher relationship I teach.
Teacher and/or student, male and/or female, send and/or receive all correspond. To say that we are all students and there are no teachers is to say we are all female, or all in a state of reception with no one sending.
Tell me. If no one is sending then what is there to receive? This is equivalent to describing the sound of one hand clapping.
One hand does not clap and one in a receiving state with no sender does not receive. Perhaps this is why contemplation does not work for many. You have to apply both the energies of sending and receiving to make it work.
By definition, if I know something you do not know — a foreign language for example — and I help you learn it then I am your teacher and you are my student. You are not helping me learn the language, I am helping you.
On the other hand, if you know Algebra and I do not and you assist me in learning it then the situation is reversed and you are the teacher and I am the student.
This seems very elementary. I am surprised that some take issue with this. Obviously, there are teachers and there are students in many categories and situations.
If I were to merely teach people the keys with no feedback or contemplation, the average person would find them interesting, but not register the full meaning. “Words veil truth,” and contemplation is necessary to see the truth behind the words. Even the great words of Jesus can be interpreted in a negative light because of illusion. Only contemplation through the soul can reveal their true beauty.
A reader tells me I am overly feminine in my teaching approach. Most accuse me of the opposite. Actually, I see both strong male and female energies involved so I won’t disagree.
Some have a problem with the word teacher. I, for example, have some knowledge that the world as a whole does not have. If I help you achieve that knowledge – does that not put me in a teaching position and you in the student position?
That does not mean, of course, that you do not have things to teach me, but the point I am getting at is that both energies of sending and receiving must be worked with or progression will come to a standstill.
May 24, 2009
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
The Disciple Will Be an Initiate
Within many organizations an initiate is one who obeys certain programs, learns certain keys, codes or signals and progressions from one step to another within an organization. This is not what we are talking about here.
We are looking at the actual principle behind the process of initiation itself and this has little or nothing to do with learning some code or process or going to some school. The principle is this. An initiate is one who initiates.
If therefore one is considered a high initiate in some organization, but does nothing to actually initiate or assist in initiating some new benefit for humanity then he or she is not an initiate according to the principle itself.
The initiate’s work must not depend on someone else or even God telling him what to do. Instead, the seeker must learn the power of self-initiated effort. He must participate in a work that will initiate the forward spiritual evolution of humanity.
How does the disciple use his power of initiation to do this?
A member gave this answer: “Instead of waiting around for God or ‘the Masters’ to call him to some ‘holy mission,’ he sees a task that needs doing and calls himself to it.”
Good concise answer. When I was young and constrained by the church I used to pine for other times in history when there was opportunity to initiate as any self-initiating in the current church can get you in trouble. There you are just expected to just obey.
As I was on the threshold of gaining some enlightenment on this issue, I read an inspiring statement from Jesus in the Aquarian Gospel. There he talked about progression along the path and when the initiate forges ahead he leaves the crowds behind. At the point of initiation, he will often be alone while the masses are in the background merely trying to do what they are told.
This helped me awake to this fact: “The more it appears that there is nothing new to initiate, the stronger is the need and the greater is the opportunity to create anew.”
It was a great joy for me to throw off the shackles that held me bound and then forge ahead as seemed good to my own soul.
Suppose the initiate looks at the situation of the planet and concludes that there is only a handful of great works that are even possible to initiate in his lifetime. He recognizes his own limitations (which is important) and realizes that he has not the internal resources to spearhead the work or do it alone.
How then should he use his power of initiation?
The disciple may not be in a situation or have the know-how or resources to initiate a monumental work to change the world. If he sees that he is unable to create great change or initiate a great work the worst thing he can do is to throw his hands in the air and do nothing.
Instead, each seeker must assess himself and then ask himself what he can realistically do to serve. There is always something. If he cannot find anything then he is not looking.
One quality that the accepted disciple has registered in his psyche is this. He wants to create change beyond that which affects his individual self, his family or community. He desires to create the most far-reaching change that is possible — preferably something that will affect the whole world. On the other hand, few disciples have the ability to spearhead such a work. What can they do then to serve as the feel impressed from within?
First, he or she must pick their area of interest. Is it politics, spirituality, education, science or what?
For most of this group it would be spirituality and for others politics or another field.
Once the seeker has identified his areas of interest, he then needs to survey the ideas circulating in the world and pick one that has the greatest possibility to create the desired change. Finally, he needs to support that work according to his talents and capacity to serve.
He can serve with his labor and his financial resources. It seems in this age that the greater is the light available the more difficult it is to gather the finances necessary to make a difference.
One thing that each person with power to initiate can do is start or participate in a group. There are many people in groups on the internet who are looking for greater light and knowledge.
We all know that starting a worldwide or national organization is difficult indeed. Starting any group centered around new ideas is difficult and tests the power to initiate in any seeker. If he has ideas to start something new and good then this will require great effort. Most will not take this path, but will seek out some group endeavor that will benefit the world and seek to support it as much as possible.
The disciple can always initiate if he persists, holds his vision and does not give up. If he does not have the talent others will come forth who can help get the job done.
In conclusion, the most important thing the initiate or disciple can realize is that an initiate initiates. The would-be disciple must therefore ask — what can I initiate or assist to initiate that will benefit the largest number of people?
Check out this video Anni West made on my teachings on initiation:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC)
July 4, 2009
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
Key Eleven: Seeking the Good of the Whole
The disciple must work with the group in mind as his highest priority rather than the individual self.
Many there are who believe that it is a top priority to work for the good of the individual and the good of the group will follow. The reason for this belief is that the most prosperous nations on the earth allow the greatest individual freedom and the least prosperous and desirable, like North Korea and Cuba, stress the good of the group over the individual.
Do I therefore support the communist idea that the will of the individual must submit itself to the will of the State?
No. Of course not. Between the free enterprise system, which stresses the good of the individual and the communist which stresses the power of the state the capitalistic system is by far the most desirable.
If this is so then what is meant by the statement that “The disciple must work with the group in mind as his highest priority?” How is that different from communism?
The difference is freedom. Even though it is important that the disciple learn to focus on group work it is also true that it is a great evil to force people to do good. It is especially evil to force people toward an ideal that their consciousness is not prepared to accept. Since few have evolved to the state where group work takes priority over the individual, only chaos can result by forcing people to do that which they do not desire.
Another point is that the collective systems today are usually ruled by a tyrant and most do not consider service to a tyrant as service to the group. In addition the person is not allowed to do any free thinking for either the group or the individual.
The importance of true group work is illustrated by the body. It is composed of billions of individual cells. If each cell worked only for itself the body would die along with the cells. They therefore must work with the aim of keeping the whole body healthy so they can themselves survive and thrive. Is there a dictator cell that bosses others around and tells them how to work as a group?
No. Instead they are aligned with a greater will so their instinctive intelligence can pick up what needs done.
Even so, the disciples of the world must lead the way in working for the ultimate health of the human race. If the whole is healthy then the individuals will thrive as well as enjoy the maximum of individual rights.
The disciple is thus willing to sacrifice the individual satisfaction to accomplish the greater good, but with the realization that, in the end, maximum individual satisfaction is predicated on group health.
It is interesting that to accomplish this end that the fertile soil for group growth is not a socialist environment, but one of free enterprise where the pilgrim can descend into maximum selfishness. He must be allowed to make those millions and buy six cars, three homes and a yacht if he wants?
Why?
Because each of us must descend into the black hole of maximum selfishness. When most individuals reach that point they discover they are still not happy and satisfied. Then they ask that all important question:
Is that all there is?
Then they climb out of the pit of selfishness and they travel on a quest for meaning. They finally find that meaning when their consciousness expands to serving the good of something greater than themselves.
We can thus see why it is important to allow the maximum freedom of the individual for under an authoritarian government people cannot fully explore the necessary path of selfishness.
I’ll end this section with some quotes from DK on groupwork.
“You must not imagine that the particular line of work on which you may be engaged is the factor of main interest. It is not primarily the unfoldment of the intuition, or of the power to heal, or of telepathic efficiency which is of importance. That which counts with the Hierarchy as the Ashrams function is the establishing subjectively of such a potent group interplay and group relation that an emerging world unity can be seen in embryo. A joint power to be telepathic or a group capacity to intuit truth is of value and somewhat novel. It is the functioning of groups who have the ability to work as a unity, whose ideals are one, whose personalities are merged into one forward swing, whose rhythm is one and whose unity is so firmly established that naught can produce in the group the purely human characteristics of separation, of personal isolation and selfish seeking, that is new. Unselfish people are not rare. Unselfish groups are very rare. Pure detached devotion in a human being is not rare but to find it in a group is rare indeed. The submergence of personal interests in the good of the family or in that of another person is often to be found, for the beauty of the human heart has manifested itself down the ages. To find such an attitude in a group of people and to see such a point of view maintained with an unbroken rhythm and demonstrating spontaneously and naturally—this will be the glory of the New Age… There will (through this and analogous groups) be set in motion on earth a network of spiritual energies which will facilitate the regeneration of the world. The influence of these groups—when permanently established and potently working—will have a wider objective than just the elevation of humanity.” Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Page 22-23
“This will become possible when the individual members in the groups and the individual groups of disciples lose sight of their own identities in an effort to make this hierarchical work possible. In this type of group work, the feelings, reactions, wishes and successes of the individual most emphatically do not count. Only that is regarded as of importance which will further group effort and enrich the group consciousness.” Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Page 43
“This is of such a nature that there emerges eventually a group steadiness and a group freedom from “oscillation” which will permit of uninterrupted group work and interplay. It will come if each of the group members will simply mind his own business and permit his group brothers to mind theirs; it will come if you keep your personality affairs, your private concerns and troubles out of the group life; it will come if you refrain from discussion of each other and of each other’s affairs and attitudes. This is of supreme importance at this stage of the group work; it will mean—if you can achieve success in this—that you will be able to keep your minds clear of all lesser things which concern the personality life. This means that your minds will be free, therefore, for group work.” Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Page 60
“No group can be used in world service that is not working in perfect accord and this harmony must be attained as a group. It must be brought about, not through the process whereby people withdraw within themselves and thus inhibit that which upsets group equilibrium, but by the process of loving self-forgetfulness.” Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Page 194-5
July 3, 2009
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
Key 10 — Use The Power of Judgment
We’ve said a lot about judgment, but no matter how much the principle is taught and the people are encouraged to use it few do.
What are the four reasons seekers do not use this Key?
The three reasons are:
[1] Laziness
Good judgment takes effort and the inclination for average people is to take the line of least resistance. When taking this line of least resistance, a person who is faced with two choices will take the one requiring the least effort. If therefore such a one is faced with a direction that does not require the effort of judgment, then he will take that. Such a direction is usually the result of another person’s judgment and not his own. This is the path of the Beast.
[2] Apathy.
People are just indifferent to taking responsibility. This might be called an aspect of laziness but with a twist. A lazy person may see the need for judgment but just not get around to it. An apathetic person will not even think about the need but only what matters to himself.
[3] Fear.
This is the most powerful reason behind the avoidance of judgment. The person may be enterprising and care for obtaining good results, but if he is afraid that his judgment may do more harm than good, and he will have to be responsible for it, then good intentions are meaningless. Such a person will be stopped in his tracks and unable to make a judgment.
The disciple must care, and must be industrious enough to initiate and must overcome any fear of the failure of bad judgment. When he does this then he has the possibility of being of service to the cause of light and truth.
[4] The belief that judgment is wrong or even evil.
Judgment has gotten a bad rap because of this scripture:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Matt 7:1-5
Here Jesus is NOT telling us that we cannot judge, but is instead warning us of the law of karma if we judge harshly or incorrectly, for he says: “with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Therefore, if you judge someone with minor faults to have major faults, this harsh judgment will come back to haunt you.
In this scripture He gives the key for righteous judgment: “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” In other words, concentrate on eliminating your own faults first, and then you will be able to make a correct judgment as to how to help your brother (or sister).
Here is another scripture illustrating even more clearly that Jesus was talking about the law of karma:
“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” Luke 6:36-38
Here He is simply saying that if we judge rashly, condemning our brother and not forgiving him, we will reap what we have sown and find condemnation coming back to us. Jesus gives us a guide in using the power of judgment correctly:
“I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” John 5:30
As we seek to become one with God and follow His will, then the beam clogging our vision will be removed and our judgment will also be just. Here is an interesting scripture where Jesus actually tells us to judge:
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” John 7:24
Judge with clarity wisdom and love, and when you do this and later judged, as you have judged, all will be well with you, but if you do not judge righteously, then the law of karma will bring painful judgments to your door.
Finally, Jesus tells his twelve apostles that they shall be judges:
“And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Matt 19:28
When you think of it, it is silly to say we should not judge. As soon as you wake in the morning you make a judgment as to whether to get up or sleep a while longer. When you get in the shower you make a judgment as to when you are clean enough to get out. When you eat breakfast, you make a judgment as to what you will have and how much.
When you drive to work and are a little late you make a judgment as to whether you are going to speed or not. Finally, you get to work and meet the new guy who was just hired. He wants to be your best friend and now you make a judgment on whether or not you want this type of personality in your life. Then your boss wants you to dig up some dirt on the boss above him. You judge your boss to be wrong and refuse.
We could go on and on here, but hopefully we get the point. Judgments are not wrong. Only wrong judgments are wrong. Every quality and ability has a positive and negative side to it. When the Bible and A Course in Miracles talks about judgment in a negative light, they are talking about negative, limiting judgments.
Example: The child received some bad grades in school and tells the parent he is going to do better next time. The parent responds: “You’ve failed miserably in the past, so you’re going to fail again.” This is a cruel and limiting judgment.
A positive judgment would be something like this: “I have seen you make progress in the past when you make an effort and I do believe you have it in you to dramatically improve your grades.” Here the parent made a judgment on the positive possibilities of the child, and in this case, judgment is a good thing.
Like all other qualities judgment manifests in a duality. Limiting judgments are negative and should be avoided. Positive and constructive judgments can be very good and uplifting. The disciple needs to avoid judgments that limit, condemn, belittle and emphasize the flaws of others.
Good judgment is spoken of as a divine quality throughout the scriptures. Many times we are told that Christ and God are righteous judges and this power will be given to those who overcome. It is written:
“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.” Rev 20:4
“To play it safe is not to play.” — Robert Altman (1925 – 2007)
June 15, 2009
To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
Key Nine: Ask Questions, Part 4
The Great Mystery
After we arrived back in Boise, Idaho, we concluded that traveling without purse or script was a fairly unreliable way to go in today’s world despite what the early apostles did. We could understand why the LDS church had abandoned the practice and now insists that the missionaries receive financial support from home. I think it would be a good idea though for missionaries to be able to receive assistance from those who want to help in the field of work, but this is not allowed.
For the next few months, we kept busy building our base in Boise and answering requests through the mail for literature. One thing that kind of annoyed Curtis and I was that many Mormons we came across (as well as family members) kept referring to Onias as our prophet. They seemed to figure that since we did not accept the LDS prophet that we had a need to have a similar authoritative figure in our lives as a substitute.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. We had both seen the mistake of relying too much on the beast of authority and we were determined to never again accept the word of any person blindly without first checking with the spirit within. This included Onias. We felt that he was moved upon by the Spirit to chastise the authorities in the church and felt impressed to send out his two parables, but looked upon him as an associate more than a prophet.
When Curtis and I started the organization, “The Restorers,” we did so with us as the leaders. It was something we would have done with or without Onias. His name was not mentioned on the legal papers.
As it was, Onias was a member of our organization, not the other way around. I clarify this because to this day the false idea is sometimes circulated that we joined with some organization that Onias had rather than Onias joining with us.
We made it clear to him that we were not going to blindly accept him but would seek confirmation through the spirit on any revelation that he received. He agreed that this was fine with him.
As an interesting development Curtis’ brother Bill joined our group and Onias sent his daughter, Opal, down from Canada to help us. Opal was a big help as she was a great typist and bookkeeper. I’ve never seen anyone so happy as Opal was when she was just typing away.
Bill and Opal soon started dating, fell in love and got married. Everyone thought they were a great addition to the group and a good team. Bill had a good presence, but was not into speaking. He made the perfect MC to warm up the audience with some humor and then introduce us as speakers.
A short time later when the group was having a business meeting Bill and Opal suggested that they take possession of the mailing list and keep it up. After all, Opal was doing most of the typing and paperwork so things would be easier if they completely took charge of the list.
Something inside me told me this was a bad idea and I resisted but everyone there including Curtis thought it was a good idea. It came to the point that if I insisted on maintaining control that I would look like I was using unjust authority. I finally yielded to the group, which was one of the few times in my life I acted contrary to inner guidance. I later learned (as we shall see) that the inner guidance was correct.
It wasn’t long before Onias received a revelation concerning me. He told me of it when he made as visit to Boise. He explained that God wanted me to write a treatise on marriage. I told him that I would pray about it and if I received confirmation that I would do it. I then sought and received confirmation and told him the next day that I believed his revelation was inspired and I would write the treatise. He seemed quite pleased with this answer.
After he went back to Canada I settled into contemplating the treatise. The interesting thing about the subject of marriage is that Both Onias and I expected the treatise would be supportive of plural marriage as taught by the early Mormons. He was a big believer in it as are most fundamentalists who break off from the church.
To this day the main body of the LDS church still teaches that Joseph and Brigham were correct in practicing it, and that it is entirely possible that the current or future prophet could receive a revelation to bring it back.
Most of those who have a strong Mormon background are open to the possibility of the return of polygamy. Most of the offshoots think the church was incorrect in stopping it and the practice should be continued.
At the time Curtis and I were open to the possibility of more than one wife but fortunately for us we woke up before that happened.
Anyway, I was contemplating the subject of marriage and nothing was coming to me to place on paper. I decided to read some scripture for inspiration. I browsed through the Bible reading here and there and finally this scripture caught my attention:
20 “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
22 “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26 “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 “That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28 “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30 “For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31 “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32 “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:20-32
After I read this I mused over the part that read: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.” I realized that this was a very controversial scripture and many females, especially feminists, were repulsed by it. This scripture had probably caused more people to reject Christianity than any other. As I contemplated I considered the possibility that this scripture was not understood correctly by the masses, or even the teachers.
As I continued my contemplation my eyes rested on Verse 32. Even though I had read the scriptures several times I did not recall ever seeing this verse. Let me repeat it:
“This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
I immediately began to wonder what the “great mystery” was. Paul was giving us interesting and provocative doctrine, but I could not see how he could consider it a great mystery. I had always been interested in the mysteries and there were many things I desired to know, but there did not seem to be any great mystery in this scripture. I finally concluded that if Paul said there was a great mystery in what he was writing then there must be something I was not seeing. After all, Paul was no dummy.
I then read the chapter over several times looking for the mystery. My eyes then rested upon the controversial scripture, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.” Then I realized that there were four additional words in this verse that were overlooked which were, “as unto the Lord.”
Then I asked myself why we submit to Christ and the answer was because he has greater light and knowledge than do we. Next I asked why then would any woman submit to a man and the reason would be the same. She would only submit if he were like Christ in that he has a greater light he can give her. If the man does not have a greater light than the female he cannot represent Christ to her and no submission would be necessary.
As I contemplated I found this I found this thinking delicious to my soul and in the midst of this thought I was struck by spiritual lightening and within a second the whole principle of the Molecular Relationship was downloaded into my mind.
I rose and explained to myself, “Paul was right. He was speaking of a great mystery, perhaps the greatest mystery of all time that even explains creation itself. The mystery was not male and female as we know it, but energy, the positive and negative energy units that are the foundation of all creation.”
After pacing the floor for several moments I sat back down to write and this time had more to say than I had time to write. As I began the work I realized that this treatise was going to be much different than either Onias or I could have ever predicted.
I plunged into the treatise and finished the first draft within a few days. At first I called the concept “Molecular Marriage” rather than “The Molecular Relationship. When I was done I realized that I had written down a combination of principles that perhaps have never been put into words. I thought that since Onias seemed to have gotten a correct revelation for me to write a treatise expanding the principle of marriage that the light that was in him would see the inspiration through the same eyes that I had.
Curtis was the first one to read it and he thought it was inspired and was excited about the concept so that seemed to be a good omen. I also shared it with several members of the group who were very impressed with it. I mailed Onias a copy. He was coming down in a few days so this would give him time to digest it before we met again.
A week or so later he made another trip to Boise, Idaho, and I was very interested to see what he thought of the treatise. When he arrived we exchanged pleasantries as usual and when the time was right we sat down to discuss the manuscript. I laid a copy on the table and asked him what he thought of it. Suddenly, his countenance changed from amiable and friendly to very serious.
The dialog went something like this:
His head began shaking back and forth. “This is just not right,” he said looking at the manuscript.
“What’s not right?” I asked.
“This is nothing like I had envisioned.”
I explained that it was nothing like I had envisioned either, but if I had ever received a revelation in my life then this was it.
He then explained that I had not written the message that was needed which was to expand on the concept of plural marriage and what he called “the law of adoption.” He thought that I had gone off target toward what he called “dark doctrines,” and suggested I start over from scratch and rewrite the whole thing. He said that if I did not write it correctly, he would have to do it himself.
I told him that I would contemplate further to see if any more inspiration came but that I was very confident in what I had written so far.
He shook his head again and repeated that this just was not what he was looking for.
After that we kind of put the treatise on the shelf and didn’t speak of it between us but talked of other things. Then after he went back to Canada I continued to teach the principle. I thought to myself that if what I’ve written is correct that there would have to be an overshadowing to make a connecting link. It was not long after this that I received a witness to such a link. Such a witness was described in the overshadowing experience in my book The Lost Key of the Buddha,” but in different circumstances. That is all I will say at present and may write of the full experience at a later date.
After the experience I taught the molecular principles in earnest and sought to create a molecule of seekers. After teaching it to the local group I soon had six committed to the principle, including Bill and Onias’ daughter, and we seemed to be off to a workable start.
Around this time we received a call from Onias telling us that he wanted us to get together with a group of interested seekers in Texas. We had been in communication with several people there who really wanted to meet us and he told them that he would see if he could get Curtis and I and maybe several others from Boise to go down. A short time later a group of us were headed down to Texas.
We had a good meeting. It was empowering to have a merging of the Boise and Texas group. Everything went great until we approached end of our meetings and Onias shared with us a new revelation. Instead of being about doctrine this one consisted of personal instructions to each of us. Even that wouldn’t have bothered me if the instructions had a profound meaning, but these consisted of fairly trivial things. One thing that really got to us was that God supposedly issued instructions to Curtis’s wife, Kathy, that she was supposed to bake bread and sell it. We both knew that she would have no interest in pursuing this direction. To this day I cannot remember the rest of the instructions as they were all of similar trivial jobs.
The whole revelation just didn’t set well with us but we thought we owed it to Onias to give him a full consideration so we both knelt in prayer in our motel room and prayed about it.
We both received the same answer which was that this revelation came from his own personality, that revelation was not meant to direct people in trivial parts of our lives that are meant to be handled by our own decisions. We then approached Onias and told him the answer we had received, that we could not support the revelation. We reminded him that his own revelations told him his mission was to cry repentance to the church and that we did not sense that directing our lives was part of his calling.
He was very offended by this and insisted that this current revelation was as inspired as any he had received. Then we told him we were sorry but we couldn’t support a revelation just because he gave it but we had to receive a confirmation on anything that took us into new territory.
He seemed to understand, but a week or so after arriving home we learned that he received another revelation concerning us. The revelation stated that I had fallen from my station (whatever that was) “because of pride” and Curtis was astray also. The funny thing was that since Curtis and I were the heads of the group he could not throw us out or excommunicate us. He did the next best thing. He first gave his revelation to Bill and his daughter Opal who both accepted the revelation that I had fallen and, following his instructions, they took all copies of the mailing lists from the office and departed.
They then sent the revelation that I had fallen to everyone on the list along with a letter detailing a number of things about me that were either distorted or just flat out not true. They accused me of mishandling funds which I thought was odd since I had contributed significant funds to the work myself and had never taken anything for myself.
Whatever the case, even though Curtis and I were the head of the organization we found ourselves almost as bad as being expelled since we were without our list of seekers.
Around this point in time each prospect for “the Molecule” had a major event that turned their attention away from the goal. As I said Bill and Opal were the first to go. Since Opal was Onias’ daughter I could understand her allegiance, but Bill surprised me.
Then another guy went to church one Sunday and when he entered the building he heard a voice saying, “this is Zion.” He groveled to get back in the church and we never heard from him again. Another received a revelation that he was Hitler in a past life and went off to join the Aryan Nations. Everyone involved had something strange happen. Even Curtis was not immune for his wife had an affair that devastated him to the point that the work was the last thing on his mind. He wound up putting the work on hold and building up his business so he could survive in the real world.
Within a short time I had no group. No one was left but me. In this situation “the Presence” that communed with me let and I thought I has failed in doing my part. He came back some time later and, stayed with me for a while and on departing would return when I had gathered the quality and quantity of people necessary to create the Molecule.
This has been my goal since that time, one that I will continue to work toward until my last breath and beyond to the next life if necessary.
Aftermath
Onias used Bill and Opal as a base of operations for himself in Boise, Idaho. He forbid both Curtis and I from using any revelation he ever wrote. He wrote his own treatise on marriage which was in support of the standard Fundamentalist view of plural marriage and Bill started keeping an eye out for a plural wife. There was no reasoning with them as they had their minds made up that Onias was right and I was in the wrong.
They worked with great zeal for Onias for a couple years and then they had a falling out. They wouldn’t explain what it was exactly, but it affected them profoundly to the extent that Opal had no interest in seeing her father again.
Unfortunately, they did not move out of the Fundamentalist mode and moved on to a new prophet who claimed to have the keys of the kingdom. Bill took one of the prophet’s daughters as his second wife and I have lost track of the number of kids he now has.
Onias, whose real name is Robert C. Crossfield, moved to Salem, Utah, near the Dream Mine and started an organization called “The School of the Prophets.” I read a number of his revelations since our split and couldn’t see any significant light in any of them. From the time he rejected my treatise on the Molecular Relationship it seemed that his revelations lacked the light they had in the past. One of his first revelations told him to not seek for a position, and it seemed that the later revelations created a fairly strong governing position for him.
The most significant part of his life was a sad one. Two brothers named Ron and Dan Laferty joined his group and started getting their own revelations. To his credit, when they started getting weird, Onias distanced himself from them.
They received a revelation to kill several people who were obstructions and they killed a woman and her daughter before they were stopped and arrested. This crime became the basis of a best selling book called “Under the Banner of Heaven.”
The author Jon Krakauer, wrote quite a bit about Onias and his history. I was glad to see that his association with Curtis and I was not mentioned in a book of this context. None of the accounts of his history mentions us. I think Onias wants to forget that he ever knew us.
His group moved away from the Dream Mine area and no one seems to know where they are.
I wasn’t planning on writing so much of my history in connection with the Ninth Key which is:
Ask Questions — Or Seek & you Shall Find
The key is to not only ask questions, but also just to question things. If I had accepted Onias without question I would have wound up in a more controlled situation than I was in the Church. Not only that but as easy as it is for me to irritate people I could have wound up on the Lafferty brother’s hit list.
Questions and questioning do not come naturally. The seeker must jar his mind loose, formulate questions and ask them; and then continue to seek the answer until he is satisfied.
“As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.” — Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
June 4, 2009
To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
Key Nine: Ask Questions, Part 3
A Journey Without Purse or Script
A short time latter we began to accumulate a sizable mailing list with a significant number expressing interest in our work. Several even moved to Boise from various parts of the country. Most people though didn’t want to move to Boise to see us and we began to receive an increasing number of requests for us to go see them.
In particular there was a group in Phoenix that wanted us to come down, and the leader of the group told us that if we just made it down there that they would provide a place to stay and the funds to return.
After thinking about it we decided to make a trip. Our first stop was going to be the Salt Lake City, Utah, area where we had a number of people wanting to see us. Then we would swing by the Los Angeles, California, area and meet with some people there and then on to Arizona and back.
Before we left we had the harebrained idea to go without any money or credit cards. And where did we get that?
Jesus sent his apostles out without “purse or script” and told them people they taught would provide for their needs. Then in the days of Joseph Smith all the missionaries went without any funds and people provided for them despite their notorious reputation. We reasoned that if they could do it then we could do it. The fact that we had very little money at the time also made the idea appealing. We figured though that we should start with enough gas money to reach Salt Lake City, then we would depend on the people as did the apostles of old.
Our first stop on the way to Salt Lake City, Utah, was a Kentucky Fried Chicken near the Twin Falls, Idaho, area. I figured we had enough money for a few pieces of chicken, but Curtis had other ideas. He struck up a conversation with the manager who happened to be a cute looking young lady. After applying some charm he explained that we were on a mission from God (This was before the movie, “The Blues Brothers.”) and asked her to buy us lunch. To my surprise a few minutes later she brought to the table two large chicken dinners.
I congratulated him on his accomplishment and thought this may be a good sign. Maybe this living off the people was doable after all.
After we arrived at Salt Lake we started visiting several people on our mailing list. This was one area where we had a few actual Mormons on our list. The people we visited were interested in what we had to say, but aloof. They all wanted to keep one foot in the door of the church just in case the authorities were right. Getting any donations from them to help us on our way was like pulling teeth. By the end of the day we had maybe $5 and a donated book. The book was “The Keys of Enoch,” by J J Hurtak. This was supposed to be a revelation from God and we found it quite interesting.
We ended the day visiting the last person on our list, which was a young single mother. She was very sweet and sincere and our last chance to get enough money for gas to get to our next stop which was in the Las Vegas, Nevada, area. After answering some of her questions and explaining some teachings we told her of our situation and asked her if she could donate enough to fill up our tank. She said that she was in a bad way financially but would give us a couple dollars. We crossed our fingers and hoped we had enough gas money to get to our next stop.
She was gracious enough to feed us, but didn’t have a spare bedroom and offered to let us sleep on the floor of her small place. We accepted and took off to Las Vegas the next day.
We arrived at the next prospect’s place on fumes. We went out of our way to see this guy as he seemed to have much above average intelligence and seemed to be a true seeker.
We had a good visit with him and really liked him and wished he would move to Boise, Idaho, but he had pretty strong roots in the area. He gave us enough gas money to get to Los Angeles, California, and we spent a couple days there visiting with people on the list. One night we stayed with a kindly old couple and the next we didn’t have any place to stay, so we slept in a park.
Again we found getting donations of any kind was like pulling teeth but we thought we had enough gas money to get to Phoenix, Arizona. Once we got there we figured that the rest of the journey was a cinch for the leader had promised us enough money to take care of our travel expenses.
Again we arrived at our destination, but just barely as our tank was again near empty.
The group leader treated us amicably and told us the group had read some of the writings and were anxious to hear us address them. That evening around 15 people showed up and we talked to them mostly about the gathering principle. We found that most of the group felt that some type of apocalypse was coming soon, and most of them were not very group minded. Most just wanted to get some land in the wilderness and fend for himself when the expected collapse came. We met quite a few people of this mentality, as time passed, and came to call them “survivalists.”
Still they treated us well and we had a good visit with everyone till late in the evening. After everyone left we reminded the group leader of his promise to cover our travel expenses and told him we needed it then for we wanted to take off for home in the morning.
He looked a little startled and replied that he knew the group could come up with the money, but we should have hit them up for it while they were at the meeting.
We were beside ourselves and explained that we assumed that he was just going to give us the money and get it from the members himself.
“No,” he said. “That was not the plan.”
But he certainly gave us the impression that was the plan so we asked him if he could just give us enough money for gas and hit up the members themselves. He them explained that he was hard up at the moment and could maybe spare about five bucks (US dollars).
What were we supposed to do then, we asked for, we seemed to be stranded there. He then told us he would give us the address of some of the group who attended who lived nearby and we could visit them and ask for their assistance.
We didn’t want to do this at all but we had no choice so we took the names and the next day visited members from his list. Each visit was awkward and most didn’t have much money but by the end of the day we finally had enough money for gas to get home. As soon as we had enough money we took off and, outside of stopping at service stations, we drove straight home.
We felt ourselves fortunate to have survived the trip and be home in one piece. We concluded that going without purse or script wasn’t like it was in the old days. One difference was that the early apostles never had to worry about running out of gas.
“What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?” — Irv Kupcinet
June 1, 2009
To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
Key Nine: Ask Questions, Part 2
Or Seek & You Shall Find
Where are the Seekers?
After the experience in Idaho Falls, we concluded that we must experiment with different approaches.
Curtis did have a bit of good and bad luck in the Idaho Falls, Idaho, area. He was fired from his job from his Mormon boss who was freaked out that he was excommunicated, but then he received an answer to one of his ads from a guy who was very enthused about our teachings. I made a trip over there and we visited him together. He said that God had spoken to him and all he had was ours for the asking. For starters he said he had $50,000 worth of gold in his basement and we could take what we wanted. (Keep in mind that amount is worth about $164,000 in 2009 dollars – or $230,000 in 2024 dollars). That sounded almost too good to be true. We figured some unseen force must be helping us so we told him that we could start off with maybe $10,000. We explained that the first thing we needed to do was to move Curtis and his family to Boise so we could work together. He agreed and traded in $10,000 worth of gold and handed us the cash.
We immediately moved Curtis to Boise, Idaho, and just as he was settling in we received a call from the guy. He said that he and his wife were going to be in town the next day and wanted to visit with us. We immediately sensed there was a problem and sure enough when we got together they both had a very serious look on their faces. He explained that now God was telling him something else and he wanted his money back.
I took Curtis aside and we had a brief conference. We realized that since he had given us cash and we had it in our possession that we could just tell him we were going to keep it but we decided against this for a number of reasons and decided to give him back what we had left over.
We went back in their presence and I explained that we had used $3,000 to move Curtis to Boise and get him a place, but we would give him back the cash we had. He agreed, took the money and we never heard from him again.
“Well,” I told Curtis, “At least we got you moved here so we can work together.”
Meanwhile to keep body and soul together I worked at my real estate business that was dealing with rising interest rates and Curtis started a tree and shrub business.
Along the way I came across a book from the local library containing revelations from a guy who called himself Onias. The book contained a number of revelations that started out authoritatively proclaiming, “Thus saith the Lord.” They were mostly directed at the authorities in the LDS church condemning them for not living up to their own stewardships and previous revelations. I shared this with Curtis and he found the writings particularly interesting and wanted to contact him. We wrote him in care of the publisher and a short time later he called us back on the phone.
It turned out the guy lived in Canada and he had been trying to draw attention to his revelations for some time and was thrilled to talk to someone who found them interesting. He then told us he was going to take a trip down to Idaho to meet us.
A few days later he showed up and we spent some time with him. He was looked about sixty (but was only 50), balding with white hair and kind of looked like a prophet. He then shared with us two revelations that were not in his book. The first was “The Parable of The Pear Tree” and the second was “The Parable of the Deceitful Merchants” which can be found at:
We read these over and concluded that this was his best work to date. Then I came up with what I thought was a masterpiece of an idea. We could send these out to every single Mormon in the Boise area and if that went well, we could send them out to every Mormon in the country. We figured that if anything would jar the LDS out of complacency that these writings would.
Both Curtis and Onias thought this was a great idea and we later pooled what funds we had and began the project. Onias was long gone back to Canada and Curtis and I started an organization that we called “The Restorers.” Under this name we published and distributed my writings and the two parables of Onias.
The major hurtle we now faced in sending out the writings was getting mailing lists of the LDS in the Boise, Nampa, Caldwell, Idaho, area that we wanted to cover as a test. The lists were under tight control of the Bishops and we figured that the various Bishops would be very suspicious if we asked for a copy of a list of the local members. Then I had an idea. I told Curtis that there was another person in each ward that had a copy of the list and that was the female Relief Society president. She is not pestered for things nearly as much as the Bishop and was likely to be much less suspicious. Now Curtis was quite charming with the ladies so I told him he was the best one to carry out this project and I would handle the nitty gritty of compiling lists and creating the mailing labels. His job would be to charm the Relief Society Presidents into lending him the lists for a few moments while he photocopied them.
Curtis carried out this project admirably and wound up getting a copy of every single list in the designated area. If you every meet him at a gathering he will he happy to tell you stories of how he did this and sometimes succeeding by a hair.
I headed up compiling the list and made labels, and altogether we had about 10,000 LDS families that were going to receive the most startling piece of theological mail of their lives.
We printed up 10,000 copies of the writings and sent them out in several different mailings. The first mailing was around 2000 homes. A day after sending them out we sat by the phone waiting for it to ring. What kind of response would we receive we wondered. Would we get some calls from a few of those who are seeking the truth but know not where to find it?
We soon found out. A day after the mailing the phone did ring, but it wasn’t from anyone seeking the truth. An angrier bunch we had never encountered. Those who called did so to let us know how upset they were that we had sent them such trash and that they were going to burn it. Many of them said they had called the post office to complain and warned us to never send them a piece of mail again.
Fortunately for us it was not against post office regulations to send unsolicited mail or we would have been in big trouble.
We didn’t get the response we wanted but we decided to forge ahead with the complete mailing anyway and we sent out the whole 10,000 pieces.
After we got over the shock of there not being anyone seeking higher knowledge we got kind of a kick in answering the phone and dealing with the angry Mormons.
Then, a short time later we found out we had a greater impact than we thought. We talked to an active member of the church and he told us that the churches in the whole area were alarmed at the mailing and had notified headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, about it. One of the head apostles, Mark E. Peterson, then came to Boise, Idaho, and gave advice to the members and leadership about the problem.
The member told us that they were beside themselves about how we got all the names and addresses of the members in the area and wanted to put a stop to any more proliferation.
Actually, we would have done more mailings, but we ran short of money do they didn’t have to worry, but they didn’t know that.
Out of the 10,000 mailings we received one friendly call. He was a guy on the fringe of the church who was interested I what we were doing, but didn’t want to support us. He did come to some of our meetings and visited with us now and then.
After concluding that mailing directly to the LDS wasn’t going to find the seekers we decided to hold some seminars on interesting scriptural subjects and invite the masses instead of just the LDS.
This didn’t work either. We’d have maybe a half dozen people show up which was nothing to get excited about.
Then I had another bright idea. We would run short classified ads in national magazines using the two parable/revelations as a hook. We reduced the wording to the fewest possible words to save money. It ran as follows:
“Mormons! New revelations sent free!”
This was followed by our address. We ran the ads in The National Enquirer and about five other tabloid classifieds that were sold in grocery stores.
Again we waited in anticipation. Would we find some of those Mormons who were looking for truth?
We were pleased to finally get some reasonable response but somewhat amazed that most of it came from people who were not members of the LDS church. This was strange we thought. We advertise specifically to Mormons and non-Mormons respond.
When Curtis and I were active in the Church we figured that the LDS people were above average in seeking after truth, but now we began to wonder.
To those that were interested we sent them the two parables first and then followed up with several things I had written. We sent them the original draft of “Infallible Authority” and my first treatise on The Gathering called “The Literal Gathering of Israel.” We also used the story “Journey’s End” which is now in The Archives.
May 31, 2009
To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
12 Keys of Discipleship
Key Nine: Ask Questions, Part 1
Or Seek & You Shall Find
Note: Because of its extra length this key will be presented in several sections. Here is part one
Questions
Why is this key important?
What’s the difference between those who ask questions and those who do not?
Why do so few ask questions and among those who do;
Why do so few ask the right questions?
When I was active in the Mormon Church I continually asked questions and sought knowledge outside the normal box. First, I sought out what was termed in the church as “the mysteries,” and then moved beyond regular church mysteries, such as the location of the lost ten tribes. I studied metaphysics and finally wound up settling on an extensive study of the Alice A. Bailey works.
The problem that developed was that there was no one in the church with whom I could share my thoughts. If your thinking gets too far off the mainstream then they will call you in, ask you questions, and may try you for your membership so I had to be careful who I shared my thoughts with..
During this lonely period I took solace in this LDS scripture:
“For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.” Doctrine & Covenants 123:12
Even though this scripture was written with the non Mormons in mind I now felt that it applied to members of my own religion. I felt that surely I must not be that different, that there must be many in the church who are seeking the mysteries and greater knowledge and the only reason they do not have it is they do not know where to look. If I were free to teach them I figured that there had to be many who would gladly respond and absorb the teachings.
In 1979 I finally got my chance to test this scripture as I was excommunicated for wrong thinking. After the church had done their worst to me I had nothing to lose in approaching anyone I wanted and explaining to them what I had learned.
I started with my oldest sister as she had earlier inspired me through conversations we had to search for knowledge in the scriptures. I wanted to return the favor and called her up and attempted to explain a few things.
I was startled to learn that she was completely closed to everything I was saying and the conversation ended with her telling me that she was going to place my name in all the temples for the prayer circles to pray over. She hoped that the power of God would set me straight.
I next called up an old girlfriend who seemed to be a real seeker when I was going with her as well as very open-minded.
I received a similar response from her as I did my sister with the caveat that she would burn anything I would send her.
To my dismay I received a similar response from everyone in the church that I approached and I found that anything I gave members to read they just didn’t throw it away, but burned it. It seemed to them that if they did not burn them then the writings may get in the wrong hands and corrupt someone.
After this I brainstormed with my nephew, Curtis, who had been excommunicated for the same reason as I. He had been receiving the same response as I but we both still had faith in the scripture and figured the seekers had to be out there somewhere. We decided to advertise in the local “Thrifty Nickels.” He lived in the Idaho Falls area at the time, and I lived near Boise so we decided to advertise in the papers in those two areas. The ad went something like this:
“To all LDS looking for greater light and truth send us your address and we’ll send you free enlightening information.”
To our surprise about the only response we received was from non-Mormons, except for one LDS guy in Curtis’ area. Our ads did create quite a bit of buzz though and one Sunday, Curtis decided to go to church and check out the temperature of the members. As Sunday School class was ending he rose up and announced something like this:
“My brothers and sisters. I’m sure you’ve heard about the ads for LDS seeking greater light and truth. Well, I thought I’d let you know that it was me who placed them in the local paper. I have some free information I would be happy to give you and will stand at the exit to my right. Anyone who goes through that exit I will give some literature.”
Curtis then proceeded to the exit on the right and to his dismay every single person went out in the exit on his left.
When Curtis told me about this I had a good laugh and appreciated his boldness. Then again we asked, “Where are those people who are seeking for the truth and just can’t find it because they know not where to look?
After we brainstormed again we decided to give a seminar in Mormon rich Idaho Falls.
We rented a conference room at the Holiday Inn and ran ads in the local daily paper. Then we went down there three days before the event and passed out flyers all over town. I can’t remember the topic but I think it had something to do with the mystery of God and receiving revelation. We thought it would stimulate interest but evidently there was something in the ad that raised a red flag.
The big day finally came and Curtis and I prepared to receive the multitude of seekers storming the door.
We waited and waited and waited and no one came. As we were about to fold up and go home one lone soul finally drifted in.
It was a sixteen-year-old kid.
We welcomed him and asked him what caused him to come.
He said he came to call us to repentance.
Curtis and I looked at each other and we didn’t have to speak. We knew what each other was thinking. This was worse than no one showing up. It was adding insult to injury to have a brainwashed kid show up calling for us to repent from seeking the mysteries of the kingdom.
This was indeed a needed wake up call. From that moment on we knew we had an uphill battle if we thought we were going to attract Mormons with teachings that are out of the box.
Then later we discovered that that vast majority of people in general are attached to some believe system that greatly hinders their seeking, keeping them in the prison of a box powered by their own thinking.
“The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good.” — Ruth Benedict (1887 – 1948)
May 26, 2009
To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Easy Access to All the Writings
For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE
JJ’s Amazon page HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
Understanding Concepts
Are concepts good or bad? Is it a positive or negative thing for us to use them?
Many view them as negative because of several comments made by A Course in Miracles. Here is one:
“Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, so they must be made. Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of his own? Concepts maintain the world. But they can not be used to demonstrate the world is real. For all of them are made within the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways and finally “maturing” in its thought. They are ideas of idols, painted with the brushes of the world, which cannot make a single picture representing truth.” T-31.V.7
On the other hand, sometimes the Course speaks positively about them as in this quote:
“There is no order of difficulty in miracles because there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified perception.” M-22.1 “We have too much to accomplish on behalf of the Kingdom to let this crucial concept slip away. T-6.V.A.4.
So here we are told that the idea of there being no order of difficulty in miracles is a “complete” as well as a “crucial” concept that is important for us to understand and accept.
The Holy Spirit is even spoken of as a concept and we know that it is a positive creation:
“The Holy Spirit is a difficult concept to grasp precisely because it is symbolic and therefore open to many different interpretations.” OE Tx:5.10
Even the Course itself presents us with “major concepts.”
“This manual is not intended to answer all questions that both teacher and pupil may raise. In fact, it covers only a few of the more obvious ones, in terms of a brief summary of some of the major concepts in the text and workbook.” M-29.1
This quote helps to clarify why the Course may sometimes sound negative on concepts:
“And what is light except the resolution, born of peace, of all your conflicts and mistaken thoughts into one concept which is wholly true? Even that one will disappear, because the Thought behind it will appear instead to take its place.” W-pI.108.1
Here it is speaking of light as a true concept, but then it tells us that this concept “will disappear, because the Thought behind it will appear instead to take its place.”
In this world we have to form concepts or we couldn’t understand anything, but learning through concepts can only lead to a partial understanding. For a full understanding of anything we need to go to the realm of knowledge where we can understand the thought behind the various concepts.
Meanwhile as we experience the illusion, concepts, though imperfect, must be used for basic communication.
The student may at this point ask: “What is the difference between an idea and a concept?”
The Course speaks quite positively of ideas and even tells us that “Everything is an idea.” T-5.I.2
You might say then that a concept is the embodiment of an idea or in simple terms a concept is an attempt to describe an idea in words.
Just like you can have good and bad ideas there are good and bad concepts.
A good idea put into words to make a concept can be a positive thing. The great example of this is the Course itself which presents us with many concepts. Here are a few both positive and negative:
“Let us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts:
Thoughts increase by being given away.
The more who believe in them the stronger they become.
Everything is an idea.” T-5.I.2
Here are other concepts:
“Size” T-1.III.9 “Up and down” T-1.VI.3 Near and far” W-pI.30.4 “Atonement” OE Tx:2.45 “Nothing and everything” OE Tx:2.99 “Levels.” T-3.IV.1, “The devil” T-3.VII.2 “God” and “His creations” T-7.VI.1 “Time” M-2.2. “Punishment” T-2.VIII.3 “Fear” T-5.VI.9 “Health and sickness” T-8.VIII.2 “Choice” T-10.V.14 “Your thoughts determine the world you see.” W-pI.11.1 “Reincarnation” M-24.1 “individual consciousness” C-in.1
As you can see the idea of concepts covers quite a range with some considered positive and others negative.
When we examine in depth the use of concepts by the Course, we see that concepts in relation to ourselves is the greatest error and this is where the most negative remarks on the subject is found.
Here we have a brief explanation of the problem of our concept of self:
“A concept of the self is meaningless, for no one here can see what it is for, and therefore cannot picture what it is. Yet is all learning that the world directs begun and ended with the single aim of teaching you this concept of yourself, that you will choose to follow this world’s laws, and never seek to go beyond its roads nor realize the way you see yourself. Now must the Holy Spirit find a way to help you see this concept of the self must be undone, if any peace of mind is to be given you.” T-31.V.8
“A concept of the self is made by you. It bears no likeness to yourself at all. It is an idol, made to take the place of your reality as Son of God. The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be.” T-31.V.2
In conclusion we can say this. Any idea can be reduced to a concept by providing a description that is presented in the words of this world. Such a concept can be made around something positive such as God, the Holy Spirit, peace or even love. Negative things can also be presented as concepts such as fear, hate, special relationships, the devil etc.
In all cases the clearest of concepts do not reveal the full truth, but just point us toward it. We must seek “the Thought behind it” to discover the fullness of truth. See: W-pI.108.1
Until we discover the pure thought and meaning we must rely heavily on concepts. This is why many are presented in the Course. But even all concepts and the Course itself are to be set aside at our awakening:
“Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.” W-pI.189.7
.To search the website, containing millions of words, replace the word “search” with the word or phrase you want to find and place the entire line in the Google search box.
“Search” site:freeread.com
Access other articles associated with ACIM HERE
Check out JJ’s Facebook Group HERE
Join A Course in Miracles Discussion Group on X (Twitter) HERE
Check out JJ’s books on Amazon HERE